Plans Floated To Guarantee Spec. Ed. Aid

Special education funding generally transforms Congress into a
church choir, singing from the same page as lawmakers put more federal
money—though not as much as most educators would like—into
helping students who have disabilities.

But now a discordant question has disrupted the harmony: Should
federal law require Congress to automatically allot a certain amount
each year?

New proposals would move the funding for the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act, now $7.11 billion, from the discretionary
to the mandatory side of the education budget. That means the amount
would no longer be subject to the politics of the annual appropriations
process.

The notion, which failed to generate momentum in past years, enjoyed
a surge early this month when the Senate unexpectedly approved an
amendment from Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, to the annual budget
resolution. The Harkin provision cleared a procedural hurdle to making
special education funding mandatory.

Congress could take up the question again this week as senators and
representatives try to hash out a compromise budget resolution, the
five-year blueprint for federal spending. The House version does not
contain any language on mandatory special education funding.

The Harkin provision is part of a drive to boost funding for IDEA
state grants to 40 percent of the national average per-pupil spending
for public K-12 education—a share that advocates believe was
promised by federal lawmakers to help districts meet the requirements
of a complicated and controversial law.

Sens. James M. Jeffords, the Vermont Republican who chairs the
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Edward M. Kennedy,
the panel's ranking Democrat, are sponsoring a separate bill that would
mandate IDEA funding increases of $2.5 billion a year for the next six
years. Such a move, they say, would finally give the 25-year-old law
the funding it authorizes.

Sen. Jeffords was a freshman member of the House when the original
IDEA law passed in 1975. He said last week that the original intent of
Congress was to increase the funding to its authorized level—40
percent of the national average per-pupil expenditure—within a
few years.

That didn't happen, however. The federal contribution languished at
about 7 percent until recent years, when GOP appropriators took on the
cause and began pouring money into the program. This year, IDEA grants
rose to the 15 percent level—up from 12 percent in fiscal
2000.

"When we passed IDEA, there was no discussion of mandatory versus
discretionary funding, there was just the assumption that the federal
government would pay its appropriate share," Sen. Jeffords said in a
written statement to Education Week. "I think had we known then
what we know now we would have made it mandatory."

Rep. Charlie Bass, R-N.H., has sponsored legislation in the past two
congressional sessions that would make IDEA funding mandatory. He said
at a meeting with New Jersey state legislators last week that that's
the best way to ensure districts see much-needed increases in aid.

"The only way that the federal government will ever meet its funding
obligation under IDEA is by taking its funding decisions out of the
yearly appropriations process and making the funding a mandatory
program," he said.

But a colleague of his, Sen. Judd Gregg, also a New Hampshire
Republican, says that changing the IDEA to mandatory funding would be a
"major mistake" because it could open the door for unchecked increases
in other education programs.

"It's not fiscally responsible," Mr. Gregg said at a meeting with
reporters earlier this month.

Currently, only $345 million of the total $42.4 billion Department
of Education budget is mandatory—mainly in higher education
programs, such as administration for the direct-student-loan
program.

In the past two decades, Congress has been reluctant to make program
spending mandatory because of chronic federal deficits that ended only
recently.

Such a move, analysts say, would be a major shift in the education
budget.

"This is something that doesn't have a lot of precedents, especially
in education programs," said Edward R. Kealy, the executive director of
the Committee for Education Funding, a coalition of education groups
that lobbies for increases in the education budget.

"It's still going to be a tough sell," he said of mandatory IDEA
spending, "but it has a lot more support and leverage than it ever has
before."

Momentum for such a plan is growing fast, added Joel Packer, a
lobbyist for the National Education Association, the 2.6 million-
member teachers' union. "We've definitely picked up some significant
Republican supporters—it's really become a bipartisan effort this
year," he said.

Promises, Promises

The history of IDEA funding is exasperating for many educators.

In 1975, Congress passed the groundbreaking law, then known as the
Education for All Handicapped Children Act, that guaranteed thousands
of children with disabilities access to a "free, appropriate public
education" for the first time.

The law stipulated that states could receive a maximum federal grant
of 40 percent of the national average per-pupil expenditure for public
elementary and secondary schools. Lawmakers set a goal of meeting that
level by 1980.

Even then, some doubted Congress would ever be able to give
districts enough money to support the requirements of the law. One of
the greatest skeptics was President Gerald R. Ford, who stated, as he
reluctantly signed the measure into law: "Even the strongest supporters
of this measure know as well as I that they are falsely raising the
expectations of the groups affected by claiming authorization levels
which are excessive and unrealistic."

In the quarter-century since then, special education enrollments and
costs have risen dramatically: More than 6 million students are now
being educated under the IDEA, up from about 3.3 million in its early
years and a more than 30 percent increase just in the past 10
years.

Many lawmakers, educators, and lobbyists say they strongly believe
the original intent of the law was to provide full funding of the
authorized federal share.

"There's no question in our minds that when the bill was originally
negotiated, the 40 percent was not seen as some lofty goal, but as a
commitment they intended to keep," said Jordan Cross, a legislative
specialist with the American Association of School Administrators.

School administrators and district officials around the country
speak of their need for more special education funding. Because they
are required to provide appropriate services to all students with
disabilities, general education and other programs for nondisabled
students are shortchanged, school leaders say. ("Schools Grapple With Reality of
Ambitious Law," Dec. 6, 2000.)

And by moving the IDEA to the federal mandatory-spending column,
some administrators say, districts could better plan their budgets and
spend money more wisely because they would know how much aid they were
guaranteed each year.

A Tough Sell

But even with the new momentum, getting the mandatory-funding plan
passed in Congress may be challenging. For one thing, it doesn't have
the support of the White House or congressional GOP leaders, including
Republicans on the House and Senate budget committees, which rejected
similar plans.

President Bush has instead proposed increasing IDEA state grants by
$1 billion, to $8.11 billion, in fiscal 2002.

Republicans have traditionally opposed increased mandatory spending
because it removes control over budget levels. Furthermore, GOP members
of the House Budget Committee believe that their proposed $1.25
billion-a-year increase is a sufficient move toward a long-term goal of
"full funding" of the federal share of special education costs.

"There's no need to move it to the mandatory side," said Brenna
Hapes, a spokeswoman for the House Budget Committee, who noted that the
panel's members might choose to add more money to the proposed $1.25
billion increase later this year.

One GOP aide who asked not to be named said that the IDEA allocation
would likely never decrease because special education is such a
politically charged issue that lawmakers would risk a backlash from
constituents.

But Sen. Jeffords and other supporters of mandatory IDEA funding
maintain that under proposals such as the one backed by the Republicans
on the House Budget Committee, it would take at least 20 years to
achieve the 40 percent level.

In a recent report, those House members called the criticism
"demagogic and hypocritical" and said that funding the full 40 percent
share would cost about an additional $110 billion in the next 10
years.

Some supporters of the funding mandate argue that if the IDEA stays
in the discretionary budget and receives significant increases,
however, other education programs will be squeezed out of any
additional funding.

"The pressure on appropriators is to put almost all their funding
into IDEA," Mr. Cross of the school administrators' group said. "Unless
we move IDEA out of discretionary and put it into mandatory, it's going
to be hard for any other discretionary programs to get a fair
share."

Vol. 20, Issue 32, Pages 1, 29

Published in Print: April 25, 2001, as Plans Floated To Guarantee Spec. Ed. Aid

Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here.

Ground Rules for Posting
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.